50.  37 bat­tery moved for­ward the same day and ela­bor­ate pre­cau­tions for their pro­tec­tion were ta­ken by li­ai­sing with the Perth Regi­ment and box­ing them in with DFs, laid on with the other two bat­ter­ies.  The IrRC re­de­ployed to in­clude the other two bat­ter­ies in their de­fence per­ime­ter but the night pas­sed qui­etly with con­tact being made with 1 Ca­na­dian In­fan­try Di­vi­sion.  Whereas it used to be hard to get the men in­ter­es­ted in their SA, now they won't be par­ted from them and many are love­lingly car­es­sing both a sten and a ri­fle.  The fol­low­ing day the Reg­i­ment mo­ved com­plete thro­ugh BARNE­VELD, by-​pas­sing NIJ­KERK, and con­tin­ued to­wards ER­MELO, go­ing into ac­tion for a short while en­route and with­out fi­ring mov­ing on to spend the night at ER­MELO.  The for­ward troops had oc­cu­pied HAR­DER­WIJK and this was the li­mit of the Di­vi­sion ad­vance in this di­rec­tion.  Again ela­bor­ate lo­cal pro­tec­tion pre­cau­tions were laid on with the IrRC since the coun­try to the EAST had not been cleared.  All re­mai­ned quiet un­til the fol­low­ing eve­ning when STAND TO was or­dered on re­cei­ving in­for­ma­tion that Jerry had bro­ken thro­ugh our L of C.  This pro­ved to be a false alarm and ev­er­y­one re­laxed again.  Re­place­ments for the guns ar­rived but in such con­di­tion that they had to be sent to work­shops im­me­di­ately.  The in­hab­i­tants pro­ved very fri­endly and it be­came a fav­our­ite pas­time to stroll through the town with se­veral “babes” on each arm.

51. On the 21st Ap­ril the Regi­ment moved to the LEEU­WAR­DEN area in sup­port of the 11 Ca­na­dian In­fan­try Bri­gade who were in a hold­ing role on the coast.  The bat­ter­ies were ex­tremely scat­tered in order to se­cure a max­i­mum cover­age of the wide front.